For about three years my companion and I rented a small house in the country that on the edge of a large meadow that appeared to from the end of our deck straight into the mountains. The mountains, however, were quite far away, and between us and them there was, in fact, a town. It was one of the many pleasant aspects of the house that you never really were aware of this.
It was a house of many windows, low, wide, nearly floor to ceiling in the living room, which faced the meadow, and it was from one of these that I first saw our closet neighbor, a large white horse, cropping grass, flipping its mane, and ambling about- not over the entire meadow, which stretched well out of sight of the house, but over the five or so fenced-in acres that were next to the twenty-odd that we had rented. I soon learned that the horse, whose name was Blue, belonged to a man who lived in another town, but was boarded by our neighbors next door. Occasionally, one of the children, usually a stocky teen-ager, but sometimes a much younger girl or boy, could be seen riding Blue. They would appear in the meadow, climb up on his back, ride furiously for ten or fifteen minutes. then get off, slap Blue on the flanks, and not be seen again for a month or more.
There were many apple tress in our yard, and one by the fence that Blue could almost reach. We were soon in the habit of feeding him apples, which he relished, especially because because by the middle of summer the meadow grasses - so green and succulent since January - had dried stalks half-heartedly. Sometimes he would stand very still just by the apple tree, and when one of us came out he would whinny, snort loudly, or stamp the ground. This meant, of course: I want an apple.
It was quite wonderful to pick a few apples, or collect those that has fallen to the ground overnight, and patiently hold them, one by one up to his large, toothy mouth. I remained as thrilled as a child by this flexible dark lips, huge, cubelike teeth that crunched the apples, core and all, with such finality, and his high, broad-breasted enormity; beside which, I felt small indeed. When I was a child, I used to ride horses, and was especially friendly with one named Nan until the day I was riding and my brother deliberately spooked her and I was thrown, head first, against the truck of a tree. When I came to, I was in bed and my mother was bending worriedly over me; we silently agreed that perhaps horseback riding was not the safest sport for me. Since then I have walked, and prefer walking to horse back riding - but I had forgotten the depth of feeling one could see in horses' eyes.
I was therefore unprepared for for the expression in Blue's. Blue was lonely. Blue was horribly lonely and bored. I was not shocked that this should be the case; five acres to tramp by yourself, endlessly, even in the most beautiful of meadows- and his was- cannot provide many interesting, events, and once the rainy season turned to dry that was about it. No, I was shocked that I had forgotten that human animals as an nonhuman animals can communicate quite well; if we are brought up around animals as children we take this for granted. By the time the time we are adults we no longer remember. However, the animals have not changed. They are in fact completed creations (st least the seem to be, so much more than we) who are not likely to change; it is their nature to express? And they do. And, generally speaking, the are ignored.
After giving Blue the apples, I would wander back to the house, aware that he was observing me. Were more apples not forthcoming then? Was that to be hi sole entertainment for the day? My partner's small son had decided he wanted to learn how to piece a quilt; we worked in silence on our respective squares as I thought. . .
Well, about slavery: about white children, who were raised by black people, who knew their first all-accepting love from a black women, and then, when they were twelve or so, were told they must "forget" the deep levels of communication between themselves and "mammy" that they knew. Later they would be able to relate quite calmly, "My old mammy way sole to another family." "My old mammy was ___________." Fill in the blank. Many more years later a white woman would say : "I can't understand these Negroes, these blacks. What do the want? They're so different from us."
And about the Indians, consider to be "like animals" by the "settlers" ( a very benign euphemism for what they actually were), who did not understand their descriptions as a compliment.
And about the thousands of American men who marry Japanese, Korean, Filipina, and other non-English-speaking women and of how happy they report they are, "blissfully," until their brides learn to speak English, at which point the marriages tend to fall apart, What then did the men see, when they looked into the eyes of the women they married, before they could speak English? Apparently only their own reflections.
I thought of society's impatience with the young. "Why are they playing music so loud?" Perhaps the children have listened to much of the music of oppressed people their parents dances to before they were born, with its passionate but soft cries for acceptance and love, and they have wondered why their parents failed to hear.
I do not know how long Blue had inhabited his five beautiful, boring acres before we moved into our house; a year after we had arrived- and had also traveled to other valleys, other cities- he was still there.
